FW
"Leopoldo made a live video presentation at the recent ‘Denim in Fashion Dhaka’ event organized by Denimsandjeans.com on denim trends for A/W ’17 in the three regions of US, EU and Asia. This was the first time such a live presentation was made at a denim show anywhere and brought out the touch of technology to the field of fashion forecasting."
Veteran designer and developer for denim brands, Leopoldo Duranis has been associated with some of the most reputed companies in the industry including, See by Chloe, Martelli , Evisu, Hellenic Fabrics, Benetton, Sixty Spa, Versace, Mustang and others and extended his designer expertise to them. Based in Italy, he is currently running his own brand - Care Label besides being Artistic Director for Meltin Pot.
Leopoldo made a live video presentation at the recent ‘Denim in Fashion Dhaka’ event organized by Denimsandjeans.com on denim trends for A/W ’17 in the three regions of US, EU and Asia. This was the first time such a live presentation was made at a denim show anywhere and brought out the touch of technology to the field of fashion forecasting.
Denim Trends in the US, Europe and Asia
Leopoldo’s focus was on three regions: US, Europe and Asia. Where US brands are focused on celebrities’ denim, Europe is obsessed with designer denim and Asia is more inclined towards Vintage denim. In the US, the market is focused on women’s wear. He observed that the market is not focused on quality but on celebrities who wear denim. And they call it premium. But he feels it’s not true and calls it ‘Pants’.
The situation in Europe is more focused on design. It’s about designers and not about brands. There are French luxury brands and historic denim brands. Diesel is moving from pure denim to designer denim. Leopoldo also got his own brand.
Leopoldo pointed out, Asia is focused on vintage. Asia, Europe and the US have a different approach to the denim market. Asia is more focused on tradition, heavy fabrics, non stretch fabrics, classic looks. They use selvedge and rigid ones. This is particularly true of the Japanese market.
Future denim trends
Leopoldo is of the opinion that in future denim and jeans will be back to their roots. Fabrics will be heavy and not super stretch. Stretch will be on the warp and not the weft to guarantee comfort. Color is in the direction of natural green indigo. The cast will be darkest. Environment will be the watchword. Water consumption and chemical use will decrease. We are going back to pumice stonewash. According to Leopoldo, strong washes and bleaches will be out from the scene. Washing will decrease the number of whiskers. Washing will be done by the customer and not by the laundry.
Leopoldo predicted that the market will move from the American concept of super stretch and skinny fit to a more traditional look. According to him, the future trends will be a mix of tradition, value, beauty and culture of Europe, Asia and the US. The future will be a combination of these three points of view, he concluded.
German textile designer Selina Reiterer and Greek architect Constantinos Miltiadis teamed up to create a range of touch-reactive children’s T-shirts that can be played like musical instruments, aptly calling the collection John Paul George & Me.
Each T-shirt represents a specific instrument – guitar, bass and drums – which together form a rock ensemble, the creators explain. By wearing clothes that produce sound by touch, children are immersed in an interactive game which encourages and stimulates their musical interest.
Similarly, Paris-based company The Faraday Project has released its first collection of high-end menswear made for the modern urban gentleman, featuring a lining which ‘protects every user from phone waves and NFC/RFID hacking’ of their credit cards and personal identification. The concept, its creators say, is about ‘data and health protection through style and elegance.’ They imagine their collection of Selvedge denim jeans, cotton chinos, blazers, shirts and French leather jackets as ‘the armour of the new urban pioneers.’
Another start-up, Canadian company FuelWear Clothing, has a heat-warming shirt that monitors body temperature, and heats up – or cools down – to keep the wearer comfortable in cold climates.
Even contemporary brands are entering the fray of intelligent apparel, as seen with Ralph Lauren’s PoloTech biometric smart shirt. Unveiled in 2014, this hi-tech incarnation of the brand’s classic polo is a compression shirt with biometric sensors knitted into the fabric to collect health information, much like a sophisticated fitness band or smart watch.
China planned a market-control strategy designed to support cotton farmers, with a sudden decline in export orders for China-made textiles and garments which in turn affect domestic cotton prices. Now they have too much.
China began stockpiling what has become 11 million metric tons of cotton in 2011, or 10 billion pairs of jeans. The program began in March of 2011 as an attempt to improve the livelihoods of Chinese farmers by setting a floor prices. Unfortunately, cotton prices fell leaving China with 60 per cent of the world's cotton stockpiles. However, cotton does not keep forever. An auction of the stockpile is scheduled within the coming months.
Said Lucy Craymer of the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong about how the sale. It's important to note that this cotton isn't probably going to end up on the global market. However, China makes up about 30 per cent of global cotton consumption. So if Chinese producers are using this cotton rather than cotton from elsewhere, it means there just isn't demand there. We've already seen demand for cotton from China drop substantially. We're already starting to see that cotton is trending down about 8 per cent this year. It's going to have a huge impact as we go forward.
Stockpiling is something that happens not just to make money, but because you are trying to help farmers out there who are suffering from low prices.
Several irregularities have been detected in Bangladesh’s readymade garment industry. Workers are deprived of their lawful rights and benefits. Nearly 18 per cent of factories don't provide appointment letters or identity cards to their workers.
About 47 per cent of apparel factories are engaged in operation without taking prior permission from the authorities concerned for extra hours put in by their workers. Only three per cent units allow trade unions. The extent of irregularities in subcontracting and small and medium-sized units is still high. A significant number of units have failed to ensure pure drinking water and sanitation facilities for their workers.
However, changes have taken place in the last two years. The extent of labor unrest has decreased significantly. There are improvements especially related to labour rights. The compliance culture is gradually developing and more awareness is needed among factory owners and management in this regard. Workplace safety has improved, but more is needed.
Quite a few factories give maternity leave and allowance and have group insurance for their workers. About 53 per cent of the factories inspected have participation committees while 57 per cent of them have safety committees. Factory owners are investing huge money to ensure safety at their units.
The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) says the textile industry in Pakistan is facing a crisis-like situation because of the high cost of doing business and liquidity constraints. APTMA, therefore, has demanded a further reduction of long term financing facility by at least one per cent i.e. from five per cent to four per cent, reduction in export refinance facility by another 0.5 per cent, i.e. 3.5 per cent to three per cent, and the provision of this facility to the complete textile chain i.e. from spinning to garmenting.
It also wants zero rating of all taxes on exports and providing a five per cent rebate against the export of yarns, fabrics, made-ups and garments. Also the duty on imports of manmade fibers like polyester, viscose, acrylic, and nylon should be done away with so that Pakistan’s yarn producers can compete with Indonesian or Chinese producers who have their own manufacturing capacities to produce these raw materials and their variants.
Pakistan’s textile industry exports registered a decline of over 10 per cent in January 2016, on a month on month basis. The industry has been functioning at 70 per cent capacity because of the liquidity crunch and energy constraints. APTMA wants investments to be encouraged in the sector so that the idle capacity of the textile industry can be energised.
Cambodia will host a beauty contest with a difference. As the Ministry of Labour is bringing back a beauty pageant for garment workers, which unions and commentators have deemed ‘regressive’ distraction from deep-seeded inequalities in the sector. The government has teamed up with the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) and PNN TV for the pageant, which last year saw entrants compete for a first-place prize of $300 – more than double the $140 monthly minimum wage of a garment worker. The participants will be workers in the garment industry. Women have to be at least 1.58 meters tall and men have to be 1.62 meters. The contest aims to serve as effective advertising for the garment industry and to give women a chance to show off their beauty in public.
There are criticisms the focus should be on paying workers above the minimum wage, adjusting long hours, and improving safety in hot, crowded factories. The argument is that merely because there are a lot of women workers applying for it, that doesn’t mean they support it. It just means they want to earn money any way possible. The only contest that should be conducted for the dignity of garment workers is for brands to compete on the wages of workers. So it should be a competition on who gives workers a living wage rather than a beauty contest which is plain regressive and undignified.
But some women are looking forward to it. They feel this is a good chance for garment workers to compete on TV and to speak out on a national platform about life in a garment factory so the public can know about their lives and struggles.
Cotton in India could see a disconnect from global prices in response to the relatively tight balance sheet this season. But the upside will be limited due to negative global cues. China has once again emerged as a game changer for cotton as it has for other commodities. Cotton prices in China have fallen sharply. Indications are that China, the largest importer of cotton till 2014-15, could potentially re-emerge as an exporter.
The last time China emerged as a major exporter was in the 1999-2000 season when it exported close to 24 lakh bales. India opened the new season with a record opening stock of around 77 lakh bales. It’s this extreme supply heaviness that has resulted in cotton prices dipping below the minimum support prices in many regions.
China is now bound by mandatory imports of close to 53 lakh bales of cotton under the WTO. And stocks with China are much higher than before. In this backdrop, the global cotton crop could rebound in the next season as the weather turns normal world over and the alternate crops look even less attractive. Clearly, cotton price woes are far from over.
In the last three months, India consumed close to 76 lakh bales, exported around nine lakh bales and imported five lakh bales.
After Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), its textile and garment industry has emerged with many opportunities to access technology, information and services as well as better management practices and equality of tariffs between member countries. With its own advantages, such as political stability, productivity, low labour costs, diversity of garments, Vietnam’s textile industry has increasingly gained reputation in the world market.
A study of the Organization for the Promotion of Exports from developing countries to the EU (CBI) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands revealed that the growth rate of textile exports from 2005 to 2011 in Vietnam reached the world’s highest with 32 per cent, while China was 15 per cent, India 10 per cent, Turkey, Malaysia and Thailand reached 7 per cent.
According to information from enterprises of Vietnam Textile and Garment Group, orders for rest of the year is quite optimistic. Furthermore, after the TPP, the opportunity to increase the market share in export is wide open for Vietnam textile and garment industry.
Cambodia looks forward to investment from the European Union. The country wants firms and industries from the EU to buy rubber and rice from Cambodia since Cambodia need more markets for those products. The flow of investments from the EU to Cambodia is increasing, especially from the United Kingdom. As a less-developed country, Cambodia enjoys free export quotas and duties to EU markets under the ‘Everything But Arms’ initiative. The EU accounts for about 40 per cent of Cambodia’s total rice exports.
The EU is the biggest market for Cambodia’s milled rice exports. The EU in fact has been a good market for Cambodia’s agricultural products like milled rice and also garments and footwear. Bilateral trade between Cambodia and the EU reached more than three billion euros in 2014. Total direct investment from the EU to Cambodia between January and October 2015 was about 76 million dollars compared with 86 million dollars in 2014.
EU imports from Cambodia are dominated by transport equipment. EU exports to Cambodia are dominated by machinery, transport equipment and agricultural products. Cambodia is one of the 10 members of ASEAN. The countries as a group are the EU’s third largest trading partner after the United States and China.
EDANA, the international association representing the global nonwovens and related industries closed its third Outlook Asia Conference in Singapore recently. The two days of presentations from economists, product and technology specialists, a review of the challenges to the industry of managing the waste that comes from the end of life of products and the actions, EDANA and its member companies are taking to address these issues.
While opening the conference, Pierre Wiertz, General Manager of EDANA said that since the late 1990s, strong income growth in Asia has been transforming the global income distribution. EDANA is dedicated to providing forums like this to deliver our common objective to contribute to the sustainable growth of the global nonwoven hygiene and personal care products industries, he added.
Participants highlighted their delight at the event, especially with the growing representation and attendance of regional professionals. Additionally, the range and coverage of topics presented by speakers was regarded as a positive reflection on the state of the Asian Pacific region, recognising both opportunities for growth, and its responsibility not just to its consumers, but to our broader society. The conference attracted 155 delegates, and an audience representing companies from 23 countries, with more than 90 professionals from the Asia Pacific and Australia.
